Thin and crispy oatmeal cookies (2024)

FAQs

What makes cookies flat and crispy? ›

Not Enough Flour

If your cookies are flat, brown, crispy, and possibly even a bit lacy around the edges, that means you need to add flour to your dough for the next batch.

Check your oven

If your oven is too hot, the fat melts faster than the cookie can set, and you end up with pancake cookies. Always preheat your oven and invest in a good oven thermometer. Even new ovens can be incorrectly calibrated, so check the actual temperature every time you put a pan in the oven.

Old-fashioned Oats vs Quick Oats

Subbing in quick oats will change the texture and outcome of the cookies. They'll likely be thicker and puffier instead of thin and crispy. (It also doesn't work to sub in steel cut oats.) It's important to use old-fashioned rolled oats for the best outcome!

Reduce the sugar in your dough recipe—sometimes cutting out as little as 50 grams (¼ cup) of sugar from a cookie dough will reduce the spread and lead to thicker cookies. Increase the flour in your recipe—sometimes just 30–60 grams (¼–½ cup) more of flour can improve the texture of your cookies.

How to Make Crispy Cookies. While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.

Room temperature: Use airtight containers, cookie jars, or plastic bags to prevent air exposure and moisture loss. Keep cookies in a cool, dry area. Refrigerated: Use airtight containers or sealed plastic bags to store cookies in the fridge. Monitor the moisture level to avoid condensation.

it's going to beat too much air into the butter. and it will cause the cookies to spread way too much. so those are the main issues that can cause too much spreading.

The best oatmeal cookies, like the kind we're sharing here, are soft and chewy through the center with crispy edges.

Cookies made with melted butter often deflate and become denser when they cool, resulting in a perfectly cooked fudgy center — a similar textural result to brownies that get rapped (aka banged against an oven rack mid-bake to deflate them) or Sarah Kieffer's iconic pan-banging cookies that turn out pleasantly compact.

Overbaking is the most common cause of hard oatmeal cookies. Cookies continue to cook on the baking sheet even after they're removed from the oven, so try taking them out when they're just lightly golden and still a bit soft in the middle. They'll firm up as they cool, resulting in a chewier texture.

How do I make my cookies chewy instead of crunchy? ›

Check package to make sure what you used contained at least 70% fat. A spread with less fat, diet "margarines" or spreads in tubs contain have too much water. The water creates steam, causing the cookies to puff.

Sugar: Using white sugar or corn syrup in a cookie produces a crisp end product. Corn syrup also browns more readily than some other sugars. Egg: Recipes without egg will yield a flatter, crisper cookie with more spread. Eggs provide moisture for steam which leavens the cookie dough.

Why isn't there baking powder in crispy chocolate chip cookies? Baking powder gives cookies a cake-like texture. To avoid that softness, skip it and use baking soda only.

Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Why use melted butter? Melted butter creates cookies with a different texture compared to cookies made with softened or creamed butter.

Make sure all of your ingredients are room temp. For flatter cookies, scoop your room temp cookie dough to parchment and then press the top slightly. You can always add more butter but that will result in a crunchier/lacy edge. So remember baking is all science.